[jncfhnb]

This is all likely true. Although I feel people undersell how they work together.

Iranians broadly hate their government, yeah. But the thing that gets them rioting is economic failure. Which the strikes have exacerbated.

Social media is swarmed by people saying it’ll be like Iraq and Iranians will hate the US for its actions. I’m not convinced. My small anecdata of Iranian friends with contacts in Iran agrees with me.

I think we could see regime change within a decade.

[throwawayheui57]

> But the thing that gets them rioting is economic failure

I believe Iranians want to be able to decide their own fate, with the dignity that all humans deserve. Without criminal domestic religious zealots and without foreign meddling and bombing.

The previous protest was followed by the killing of Mahsa Amini, in morality police’s custody because of improper hijab. It’s not only economic hardships. But you’re right that war has made the situation worse, obviously.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/10/iran-at-least...

[jameshilliard]

> I believe Iranians want to be able to decide their own fate, with the dignity that all humans deserve.

They certainly do, the domestic religious zealots/terrorists on the other hand murdered over 30,000 protesters in 2 days to stop that from happening.

> Without criminal domestic religious zealots and without foreign meddling and bombing.

The domestic religious zealots have essentially ensured that foreign military intervention is required to some degree for Iranians to have the ability to decide their own fate. At this point it's likely most Iranians support some form of foreign intervention.

[maest]

> I’m not convinced. My small anecdata of Iranian friends with contacts in Iran agrees with me.

I am having a very hard time believing anyone would be favourable to the country currently lobbing bombs at them from halfway around the globe. Regardless of how much they dislike their current regime.

Maybe this fuels some "everyone loves America, the good guys" fantasy, but, as someone who's come from a country where the people did not like the regime, I am very skeptical foreign interference will be seen positively or even neutrally.

Or maybe this is an attempt at making the war seem somehow just and led on humanitarian and democratic principles, as opposed to what it actually is.

[e-khadem]

Let's put it this way: Have you seen someone's brain on the sidewalk lately? No? Lost a loved one / a friend / a classmate? Perhaps when people see this (as I have) they find more favorable views of the aerial bombing campaign.

For reference, it has been verfied [~] that the regime killed ~220 students just in the recent uprisings of this January. That's a whole school full of students, all under-18. And then you have to ask, why would a teenager be on the streets, given that they knew, everyone knew, that snipers and machine guns will be there? Just 5 days ago they hung an 18-year-old who was arrested this Jan. They also hung a 19-yo wrestling champion very recently. The collateral damage of these bombings, which must be denounced and is reprehensible, still has not reached these levels either in brutality and in number. [1]

[~] (my internet connection is not good enough to find the sources, I'm using dnstt in a very unreliable network)

[1] AFAIK, Around 180-190 students have died in the recent conflict. Some 160-170 was due to an erroneous airstrike by the US military on the first day of the war, and their school was within 30 meters of a military base (!). Furthermore, some of the other students who have died were the children of the assassinated regime officials.

[oa335]

> No? Lost a loved one / a friend / a classmate? Perhaps when people see this (as I have)

Sorry to hear that. Are you currently in Iran now? Or have contact with people in Iran?

[e-khadem]

I do live in Iran.

[oa335]

I hope you stay safe. What do you think will happen if the bombing campaign is successful in bringing down the government?

[e-khadem]

There's a very narrow and vanishing window of opportunity left to end-up with anything other than a total disaster, and even in that case I'm not holding my breath for the quality of life for the next 5 years. In the long-term, it's harder to predict than either side wants to admit.

If you need a hint, just take a look at what this regime did in Syria (600k dead and 12 years of internal war), in Gaza and Palestine (75k dead), in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and more. Most recently, this January in Iran with 40k dead. You see mullahs' footprints everywhere there is a humanitarian disaster, and I'm not optimistic about the future of Iran, in either case. These are not the kind of people that let go easily, they have a cataclysmic view of the world. They (literally) gave a "Passport to Heaven" to their fighters (Assad supporters) in Syria, and those very same fighters are chanting pro-regime songs (if you can even call it that) every night at every square and major street in the city.

As an Iranian, we saw these [death] figures as an abstract concept prior to these recent events. We (the ordinary citizens) heard about Yemen and the massacre in Syria, we "sympathized," and that was it. It wasn't until this January that it finally hit me, that 40k people dying is like 15 Tienanmen squares happening at once, or 5 times the D-Day battles casualties. And it's chilling to think about what the future will look like, knowing that this is only the beginning and we are choosing between "terrible" and "much worse."

[overfeed]

> Are you currently in Iran now?

Tel Aviv perhaps? Wartime is the worst time to stage a revolutionary for anyone,specifically because its a induces a state of emergency, and any activities can be construed as aiding the enemy.

[jncfhnb]

My anecdata is from just two families whom I am hearing from indirectly and have never met in person. The takeaways are:

1) they HATE their government more than anything in the world. They’ve seen the government killing its own people.

2) the consensus of civilians is that strikes by and large are hitting IRGC targets. They do not feel civilian targets are being targeted even though the nature of it has resulted in civilian deaths.

3) they don’t feel inclined to give trump the slightest amount of trust or good will. They just want regime change by any means.

[nixon_why69]

If Israel and America can keep it in their pants and stop bombing civilians.. then yeah the government is very unpopular.

If.

[inglor_cz]

Unpopularity won't overthrow a government that is willing to drown every protest in blood.

[nixon_why69]

You think the French monarchy was overthrown because they didn't try hard enough?

It's blood against blood, but it's quite rare for people to rise up while there's an external enemy. Russia 1917 is the only example I can think of?

[inglor_cz]

"You think the French monarchy was overthrown because they didn't try hard enough?"

Yes, actually I do. Are you aware how long the process of transformation was and how little actual violence did the royal troops mete out? Most of the blood during the French Revolution was shed among the revolutionaries themselves, later. Not by the old regime which barely resisted what was happening, being confused more than anything else.

The French monarchy was remarkably limp-wristed in its reaction to the post-1789 developments, probably because, in the beginning, not even the revolutionaries themselves expected to actually dismantle the monarchy. There was no civil war similar to Cromwell's England, nor massacres in the streets similar to modern Iran. In the largest event of that early period which could be called "a battle" (Storming of the Bastille), a grand total of 114 royalist soldiers made their last stand. Which is tiny for a country the size of France.

It took about a year for the situation to progress from the first session of the Estates General to the royal family attempted flight from Versailles, and 2,5 more years for the King to be executed. A classical case of the frog being boiled very slowly. The royal regime was indecisive and offered close to zero violent resistence.

(If you want to learn about an actual abortive French revolution which was suppressed with actual brutal violence by the royalists, look up Fronda of 1648-1653.)

In contrast, current rulers of Iran have 0 doubts about what is going to happen to them - and within minutes - if they get caught by the street crowd that hates them.

[nixon_why69]

That's a really fair point, I should have compared to the Shah. Thanks for the comment.

[jltsiren]

Russia had two revolutions in 1917. In the first one, pretty much everyone who mattered was unhappy with the regime. After some clashes between protesters and internal security forces, the emperor abdicated. A provisional government formed by established politicians took control, but it had to share power with workers' councils. The country became fragmented.

The provisional government was center-left, the army was mostly controlled by the right, and the workers' councils leaned towards revolutionary left. The right wanted to use the army to arrest Bolshevik leaders. The government declined, fearing a military coup. The right saw the government siding with the left and made an actual coup attempt. The government had to rely on the workers' councils to stop it. Which then emboldened the Bolsheviks to stage a revolution of their own a bit later.

But because the right was definitely not on board this time, the second revolution was only partially successful. Instead of a controlled regime change, the Bolsheviks got a civil war that lasted five years and killed millions.

[epicureanideal]

And to steel man your position, when the Russian revolution happened the bolsheviks promised peace, an end to the war.

[breppp]

> But the thing that gets them rioting is economic failure. Which the strikes have exacerbated.

Past riots were related to women rights or election fraud. The last one were related to the economic situation, but there is a large young population in Iran which aren't religious anymore, and living in an oppressive theocracy

[iso1631]

They'll have company soon

https://gtnm.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-theocratic-authorita...

[bjourne]

My small anecdata of Iranian friends contradict yours. They are against both the US-Israeli bombings and the Islamic regime. How should be decide whose anecdata is the most trustworthy? Maybe we can use common sense instead and agree that people don't want to be bombed to death regardless of other circumstances?

[cineticdaffodil]

But the vector under a theocratic government constantly points towards failure. So you have one known vector thats disaster and one unknown vector that just mightbbe disaster.. if in doubt throw the dice ?

[cpncrunch]

Why wont a general strike work? Not enough support? People have never had freedom, so dont understand they have 100% ability to bring down govt if they wanted?

[payamb]

Due to years of corruption and mismanagement, leading to high inflation and high prices most people are below poverty line and living pay check to pay check and they won’t be able to literally feed themselves

[asdff]

This is the thing that is so curious about the concept of the general strike/siezing the means of production.

The workers already have seized the means of production. I mean truly. Owner does not have the keys. Some manager unlocks the building for the day. Workers show up to the farm. Everything gets done every day whether the owner is there or across the globe or some dubious llc entity. The only thing the owner functionally does, is to be an address on file to send their cut of the profits. Nothing more than a specially designated furnace to burn a subset of the monthly revenue, at least in terms of their actual interaction with their business and their businesses interaction with themselves.

Socialism is as easy as people waking up, going to work as usual, and not mailing that check to the owner. And having the owner go to the police, who in turn tell them "Awe shucks." These are the only conditions for socialism in 2026. Same as they were in 1926. So tantalizingly possible if people were just on board with it and not beholden to capitalism. Propaganda is why there are a subset of workers who will continue to diligently burn revenue for the owner, and why police will ultimately make the choice to sacrifice their own lives for the petty profits of this ownership class versus consider their own position in this world.

[underlipton]

What does that look like in practice? Especially with so many transactions done digitally instead of with cash these days. Say, for retail: it used to be that the manager could simply not deposit the till overages, but now only a fraction of purchases are done with funds that don't travel over our heads via the bank cloud. I suppose you could, like, just give products away, and have the customer Cash App or Zelle you (or a store account) the purchase funds. Call it "escrow". Maybe send the cost of the product back to corporate and keep the margin.

I don't disagree, mind you. You probably could just keep the supply chains moving indefinitely while substituting actual trust for the pseudo-trust and obligation Capital's funds are supposed to engender. It would just be interesting to see the first steps.

[asdff]

It might end up like the great depression where people go on bank runs and there is some panic and violence. Or, maybe people also end up just working in kind in a way.

On the one hand I see that money is some forcing factor to prevent everyone from living to some degree of excess. But on the other hand, if there were no money, it isn't like resources come out of the ether to meet demands for excess. I expect it would end up like the lifestyle we see in rural villages, where no one really lives much in excess of eachother, the community is basically sized to the limits of what the resources they manage to bring in can support. There might be different roles in the community but it isn't like one person's day's labor is worth significantly more than another person's in a different occupation like it is in our western society, where we might value someones day of effort the same as the days effort of a thousand people, simply because of their title, not because they have the strength of a thousand people.

In terms of how this might look across the globe, probably everyone moving towards median standard of living whatever it happens to be in that region. No hoarders of wealth any longer. Might be very scary for someone like Bezos, but for most of us probably the exact same standard of living that we already know. Probably better without all the waste going towards filling these unproductive hoards of resources.

[nostrademons]

Usually socialist revolutions fail because nobody can agree on who the new leaders should be. Workers seize control of the means of production...and then what? Who determines what they should do with it? Who do they look to for guidance? If you elect/appoint/select someone, now they are the new capitalist. If you don't, the machinery sits idle while various factions fight amongst themselves.

We saw this with Occupy Wall Street and the CHAZ in the U.S - these protests didn't fail because they were crushed, they failed because local police basically let them win and then once they won different factions had different ideas of what to do next. We also see it at the state level with the Soviet Union (where a strong dictatorship did eventually emerge - the communist revolution didn't mean everybody was equal, it just meant some people were more equal than others) and in Vietnam (which became intensely capitalist less than 15 years after the communists won.

The function of the business owner, CEO, or other executive figure is simply to be a symbol of which direction the organization needs to go. They don't do any work themselves, and they are selected for their ability to look pretty and shout platitudes that other people follow. But that symbol is needed to actually get the people moving in one direction.

[asdff]

>Workers seize control of the means of production...and then what? Who determines what they should do with it? Who do they look to for guidance? If you elect/appoint/select someone, now they are the new capitalist. If you don't, the machinery sits idle while various factions fight amongst themselves.

And then what is you do what you would have done at work yesterday, today. Same job description as you had previously. Your manager? Same as they were yesterday too. Everything exactly the same. Just some guy you never see is not getting their passive income. No machinery would sit idle for the same reason no machinery sat idle yesterday: people showed up to run it.

This is sort of how it worked in Cuba. Factories were nationalized and people went from working for the man to working for the public. And then the man had no government that would listen to them either. They had to go to the US government, argue that this was some great taking if left unanswered would sure happen all over the US and the rest of the world, and a hasty invasion designed by the US for these business owners to feign any political responsibility was designed, executed, and pushed back on the beachhead by the Cubans. Today the nation of Cuba remains sanctioned because of these owners from decades ago and their descendants, who still represent a significant political influence in south florida congressional districts, still feel like they were robbed by the people they were exploiting.

[jncfhnb]

It would work at sufficient scale and sacrifice

[cpncrunch]

Yes i think scale is the key, and whether the population believes it will work, or refuses to accept the status quo.